Is there a difference?

[DonGoyito]

Is there a difference between a baptism and a christening?

 

[awalt]

Baptism is a Holy Sacrament of the Catholic Church. Christening is similar in physical ritual, but I have never heard Baptism properly called Christening - I assume it’s the non-Catholic name for their ritual.

I may be wrong but that’s what I think…

 

[thistle]

Baptism and Christening are the same thing.

 

[Catholic_Heart]

Although the same things happen at baptisms and christenings, I believe that “christening” has more to do with name-giving…Although for Christians it has become the same as “baptisms”…We tend to say “christenig dress”, etc…

ps…As an aside…Ships are christened, but they are NOT baptized (grin)…

 

[totustuusmaria]

Catholic Heart:

Although the same things happen at baptisms and christenings, I believe that “christening” has more to do with name-giving…Although for Christians it has become the same as “baptisms”…We tend to say “christenig dress”, etc…

ps…As an aside…Ships are christened, but they are NOT baptized (grin)…

Ahh, but bells are baptized

I think that Catholic Heart is right. I believe the title: Christening comes from abbreviating the phrase: “the giving of a Christian name.”

I don’t know for sure, though.

 

[hilde_the_dog]

Now my dictionary reads that christening is the receiving of a person into the Christian Church by baptism. But who can trust Webster.

 

[SMHW]

Catholic Heart:

Although the same things happen at baptisms and christenings, I believe that “christening” has more to do with name-giving…Although for Christians it has become the same as “baptisms”…We tend to say “christenig dress”, etc…

For Christans who believe it is a sacrament baptisms and christenings are the same things. But somewhere along the line the word “christening” came to be more associated with the name-giving part of the sacrament. Today the word has evolved to the point that many people don’t associate it with baptism at all.

Keep in mind that at one point in history, baptisms were almost as much civil actions as they were Church related. Babies who died unbaptized were often considered to have no name. I can remember my own mother being very surprised the first time a school or other organization expected an actual birth certificate for one of her children. She had been raised to think a baptismal certificate was a perfectly adequate legal document.

Certain denominations tend to favor one word over the other, no doubt for national and cultural reasons as much as anything.

I’d be curious to hear what Eastern Catholics have to say about the words.

 

[puzzleannie]

Christening comes from an archaic English word for baptism, look at the root.

 

[ChemicalBean]

Just throwing this out there, but I wonder if it also has to do with the anointing of the newly baptized with chrism.

I mean, we do anoint altars and churches and stuff with chrism, I suppose in effect “christening” them. I wonder if that got extended to “christening” ships with champaigne.

 

[AmISearching]

But Christening still infers baptism - other wise my non-infant baptizing Protestant church I grew up in wouldn’t be so strongly in favor of having baby “dedications” instead (no baptism involved)